


Behind Blue Eyes

by Ahaviel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Between episodes s10e22 and s10e23, Canon Compliant, Castiel/Dean Winchester One Shot, Comforting Castiel, Dean Talks About Feelings, Dean in Denial, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Gen, Guilty Dean Winchester, Hurt Castiel, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mark of Cain, No Slash, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychologist Castiel, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Season/Series 10 Spoilers, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 03:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8271752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahaviel/pseuds/Ahaviel
Summary: Dean Winchester has left a bloodied Cas behind in the bunker, after finding out that Cas and Sam were still trying to remove the Mark of Cain from him. He intends to drink himself into oblivion, but winds up somewhere quite unexpected instead.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after Dean leaves the bunker at the end of s10e22 "The Prisoner" and before he wakes up in s10e23 "Brother's Keeper"

Dean Winchester stormed out of the bunker, nearly blinded by rage. He slammed the door behind him, barely repressing the urge to destroy everything in his path. _How could they?_ He wrenched the Impala’s door open and got in, jamming the key into the ignition. Maybe if he drove around for a while he could clear his head.

 _What the hell did they think they were doing?_ Dean shook his head, narrowing his eyes at the road ahead. He’d told Sam and Cas to back off, to stop looking for a way to remove the Mark of Cain from him. He’d shouted, begged, pleaded. And they _still_ weren’t listening. He’d agreed to take on the mark to save the world from Abbadon’s demonic ambitions, and now they were risking the world—everything he’d tried to protect—to try to save _him_. What was the point of all this, of all he’d sacrificed, if the world was going to end horrifically anyway? No. He’d die before he’d willingly be a part of that.

And Cas . . . Cas should have known better. Cas was a big-picture thinker. An ends-justify-the-means guy. Right? Wasn’t he? Or had he become so humanized that he could no longer look at things objectively? Had the angel’s affections for them actually turned him into a liability?

A surge of anger washed over him and gripped his abdomen with icy claws at the thought of his friend. Sure, Cas had his grace back—or what was left of it anyway—and he could probably heal himself now. But Dean knew he’d come close, too close, to ending Cas once and for all.

Twenty minutes later, still lacking answers, he pulled into the parking lot of a deserted liquor store. He’d run Baby hard, more often getting a protesting growl from the engine than the excited purr he usually coaxed out of her. He couldn’t find it within himself to care much. So it was on to plan B: getting drunk.

 

None of the usual suspects brought him any relief. Pizza, cheeseburger, porn. He sought refuge in beer, hard liquor, and back to beer, all of it unable to subdue the churning within. The last thing he remembered was thinking that maybe he’d drink himself into a stupor and never wake up. That would solve a lot of problems.

 * * * * *

“Dean.”

He’d know that gravelly voice anywhere. So help him, if Cas had tracked him back to the motel, he’d make good on his promise and kill him, friend or not. But why was everything dark?

“Dean. Are you okay?”

Dean’s eyes snapped open and he instinctively reached for a weapon, finding only a Koosh ball on the nightstand—no, on the table next to him. He looked around, panicked. He was seated on a sofa in a professional-looking office of some sort. Small end tables flanked the sofa, which faced an executive desk. A large window occupied one wall, partly shielded by a translucent window shade. On the opposite wall stood a door, which didn’t appear to have a lock. An interior door. The only question was what was on the other side?

“Dean.”

He turned to face the owner of the voice, who was standing next to the desk, concern written all over his face. It looked like Cas, but it couldn’t be. Same dark, tousled hair, same piercing blue eyes, but . . .  This man was dressed in a light blue dress shirt buttoned to the neck and secured with a properly tied purple tie. _Purple, Cas? Really?_ A tailored camel-colored sport coat topped pressed dark blue slacks with the creases visible above polished dress shoes.

“Are you feeling ill, Dean?” Cas/not-Cas asked.

“I’m—” Dean stood, not trusting his legs. “Where am I?”

The other man sighed. “My office. You seem to be dissociating again.”

“Dis— what? You know me?”

“Of course, Dean. You’re my client. We’ve been working together for seven years now.” The other man’s head tilted in Castiel’s typical manner. “Your PTSD symptoms are getting worse, aren’t they?”

“My—? No. No, I don’t have PTSD or whatever. I’ve got a bad case of the I-don’t-know-where-the-hell-I-am, but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna cure it by walking out that—” he pointed toward the office entrance as he started walking, “door.”

Curiosity and a trio of framed documents next to the door stopped him before he turned the handle. The largest document was a diploma, granting a PhD in psychology to Casey T. Elle. A smaller diploma awarded the same name a master’s degree in theology. A third appeared to be a printout from the internet, a full-color image of a scroll and the origin and meaning of the name Casey. IRISH, FROM _CATHASAIGH_ : VIGILANT, WATCHFUL, BRAVE.

Dean turned back around to face the other man, unsure whether to be amused or pissed off. “So . . . Doctor Elle? We’re doing titles now?”

“You know I’m not one for formality, Dean. Call me Cas, like you usually do.” He motioned for Dean to return to the sofa. “Sit down. Please. We need to talk about this.”

“Yeah, I’m not really into the talking thing.” Dean started to walk around the perimeter of the room, taking in the details for the first time. The desk was orderly. Maybe obsessively clean. The only knickknack was a clear glass spherical paperweight that had all the continents of the globe laser-cut into it. A lone file sat in the middle of the desk, at least three inches thick. He twisted his head and read the name, written in unnaturally neat handwriting: Dean Winchester. He made a face.

No family pictures anywhere. Behind the desk was a large bookcase, overflowing with volumes. A few Bibles, a collection of books in Hebrew, another smaller collection in Arabic. Religious texts. Psychology texts. A few medical and sociology texts. Enough self-help books to make him want to vomit.

A potted fern tree sat in the corner, and Dean reached out to touch it, expecting it to be plastic. Nope. Real. Someone had attached a fake bee to one of the branches with a pipe cleaner, as if the bee was hunting for nectar among the leaves.

“Okay,” Dean said, making the full circle around the desk and facing . . . Cas. “You did an awesome job here. I really like the detail. The bee, the religious books, the diplomas. The symbolism is stunning. But cut the crap. Who the hell are you and where am I?”

“I told you—”

“Yeah, I know what you _told_ me. But now I want the truth. Is this Gabriel’s doing?” Dean looked around the room. “You laughing your feathery ass off at this?” he called out.

“Dean. This is just my office. No one is playing any tricks on you.”

“Sure. Right. A hallucination then, maybe?” He strode over to the doctor, grabbed the lapels of his wool sport coat, and stared him down, taking every advantage of the inch or so he had on the guy. “Get out of my head, Cas,” he growled.

Wide blue eyes stared back without fear. “I wish I _was_ in your head, Dean, so I could help you with this. But I only know what you tell me, which, frankly, isn’t helping much right now. So please,” he gently removed Dean’s hands from his coat, “sit down. So we can talk.”

Reluctantly, Dean returned to the sofa, running his right hand over his face. The movement revealed a small swath of skin at his wrist and, on a sudden hunch, he rolled up his sleeve. The mark was gone.

“What did you do?” he demanded, looking at Cas. “Did you and Sam use some spell from _Book of the Damned_ while I was at the motel?” He stood abruptly, fear gripping his insides. “What consequences did you unleash this time? Huh? What did you _do_?”

Cas held his hands up, palms out. “I assure you, I didn’t do anything. You haven’t talked about spells in here before. Is this a new nightmare you’re having?”

Confused, Dean looked at the floor, thinking. “You could call it a nightmare, all right.”

“What are you afraid of?” Cas asked softly. “What has you so frightened?”

Dean whirled on him. “I’m _not_ fri—” He stopped suddenly. His reaction to the thought that Sam and Cas had removed the mark was one of fear. Not anger. He quickly sorted through those few feelings he could identify. Aside from his irritation about being stuck in an office with _Doctor Cas_ , anger was low on the list. But the mark had been feeding him a steady diet of rage. Was it actually gone?

He sat down on the sofa again, puzzled. “I’m not angry,” he said aloud, almost to himself.

“Do you think you _should_ be angry?” Cas asked.

“I can’t believe it. I’m in freaking therapy with an angel.”

Cas chuckled, looking self-conscious. “I’m no angel. But I do want to help.”

“I don’t know how,” Dean admitted. “I don’t know how anyone can help.”

Cas pulled up a chair in front of his desk and sat facing Dean. He tilted his head curiously. “Start with the truth. You said you’re not angry. What _are_ you feeling?”

Dean licked his dry lips and shrugged. “I don’t know. Confused about—” he waved his hand, indicating the room, “all this. Afraid of what the future holds. Frustrated with my brother and—” he stopped suddenly, eyeing Cas, “my friend.” He sighed. “I did something. Caused a lot of hurt. I don’t think I can take it back.”

“Are you saying you feel guilty?” Cas prodded.

“I—” Dean chewed his lip. “Yeah. I thought they betrayed me, and, you know, maybe they did, but I didn’t help anything by nearly killing him.” Running a hand over his mouth, Dean swallowed hard and looked at the floor. “I almost killed him,” he whispered. “I almost killed my best friend.”

“Is he okay?” Cas asked. “Your friend? Will he be okay?”

Dean looked out the window. “Probably. He . . . bounces back quickly. I just . . . I told them to stop trying to save me and they wouldn’t listen. Even if it means the end of the world.” He cut his eyes to Cas defiantly. “They’re willing to risk the fricking end of the world, and I’m not.”

Cas peered at him and Dean felt like the doctor could see into his soul. If there really were alternate universes, Cas had better be a psychologist in one of them, because he was damn good at it. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved,” Cas said softly.

The familiar words hit the same nerve they did the last time he heard them and he forgot to breathe for a minute. “If it’s me or the rest of the world, I’m gonna vote for me going down every time.”

“But your brother and friend don’t agree.” Cas left it as a statement.

“They think they can save us all,” Dean grumbled.

“And you don’t.”

“No. I know how this works. You want something, you gotta pay for it, and the bigger it is, or the more you want it, the more the son of a bitch is gonna hurt.”

“You don’t think you can have good things?” Cas’ voice was gentle.

“Not in this life. I’m a _hunter_ , Cas. Death and destruction pretty much follow me around.”

Cas sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, apparently studying him. “You’ve locked yourself into this flawed reality, Dean. One where you can never find happiness either because of who you are or what you’ve done. And the stakes you’ve created,” Cas shook his head slowly, “they’re enormous. The end of the world? It doesn’t get much bigger than that.”

“Hey, buddy, I didn’t create them. That’s just what _is_.” He looked around the room for a clock, noticing for the first time that there was no indication of time. Even the daylight through the window couldn’t pinpoint the time of day. “What time is it? Isn’t my appointment over?”

“No, Dean. We have plenty of time.”

“You don’t have other _clients_ to see?”

“It’s almost classic,” Cas mused, obviously ignoring Dean’s question. “The tragic hero, fighting insurmountable odds. No chance for love or happiness. Only the faintest hope that he’ll vanquish his enemy before his dying breath.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, that pretty much sums up the last ten years of my life.”

“And what of your brother and your friend?”

Shrugging, Dean gave Cas a puzzled look. “What about them?”

“Do they deserve to be saved?”

“I’d sell my soul—again—to keep Sammy safe.”

“So he deserves to live?” Cas asked.

“He deserves to be happy. He deserves a chance for a normal life.”

“And your friend? Does he deserve a chance for a normal life?”

Dean laughed in spite of himself. “I wouldn’t have the slightest clue what normal would look like for him. But he deserves better. He deserves better than me.”

“What do you think your brother would say if he were sitting on that sofa instead of you, and I asked him the same questions?”

Shifting uncomfortably, Dean shrugged. “Sam would probably get all touchy-feely and say something appropriately sappy.”

Cas lowered his leg and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Dean. If I asked your brother if you deserved to be saved, what would he say?”

“Sam doesn’t know half the crap I’ve done, okay?” Dean shot back.

“You think if he did, he’d throw you to the wolves? Really?”

Dean felt all his barriers go up, anger and sarcasm ready to lead the charge away from the very tender spot into which Cas seemed intent on digging his therapeutic fingers. But when he looked at the man, he had an immediate flashback to the bunker, to the real Cas, lying bloodied and broken on the floor, submitting, as Dean raised the angel blade high above his head. Why didn’t Cas fight back? He could have easily taken Dean down, mark or no mark, and they both knew it. Instead, he simply allowed Dean to beat him to a pulp.

_I don’t want to have to hurt you._

He swallowed hard. Everything had been so clear in the bunker, with the mark’s rage fueling him. Black and white, kill or be killed, save the world or let it go to hell. Literally. Now there were shades of gray, as if in this moment, in this room, he could see just how complicated it all was. Cas was willing to die at Dean’s hand to avoid hurting him, despite all his passionate words about stopping Dean from murdering the world when the mark finally turned him. Sam was willing to take the chance that they’d be able to defeat whatever was unleashed if they could remove the mark. They were both willing to make sacrifices because—

“Dean.”

He blinked a few times to discover he was staring at the floor again. Raising his eyes to Cas, he involuntarily braced himself for another flashback.

Instead those blue eyes studied him silently. “Did it ever occur to you,” Cas said finally, “that your brother and your friend feel the same way about you that you feel about them?”

“I can’t afford to think that.” He shook his head. “No, because someone has to make the sacrifice, and it might as well be me.”

“Are you so certain that your brother and your friend aren’t thinking the very same thing?” Cas’ voice was doing that intense thing that always tied Dean’s stomach into knots. “That they’d be willing to sacrifice themselves to save _you_?”

Dean tried to shrug carelessly, but his muscles wouldn’t respond appropriately. “Then they’d be wrong,” he said, his voice cracking.

“No, Dean. You can’t be right about this one.”

“Why not?” Dean retorted.

“Because you don’t get to dictate their reality. They love you. Whether you want them to or not.”

Dean started to speak but Cas cut him off.

“They love you,” Cas continued, “which means that you’re not unlovable. They want to save you, which means you’re not irredeemable. And no amount of pushing them away is going to change that.”

Dean couldn’t accept that, refused to accept it, because accepting it meant . . . it meant loss and heartbreak and a pain so deep even hell couldn’t match it. Accepting it meant knowing he’d break Sammy’s heart over and over again. Accepting it meant killing Cas little by little with every mark-driven action, every angry word. Accepting it meant having to feel all the guilt and remorse and self-loathing that he’d shut away from all the hurt he’d caused.

His eyes started stinging and the room went out of focus and he could feel tears gather on his lower eyelids. He tried to nonchalantly run his hand over his face, because he would not— _absolutely_ would _not_ —cry in front of Cas. Even this weird alternate psychologist Cas.

He couldn’t control his breathing and the emotions seemed to reach their gnarled fingers toward him, dragging him down into their depths. Biting his lip hard, he screwed his eyes shut and focused on regaining control. He thought he was starting to make some headway when—

“Dean.”

He opened his eyes slowly, breath shaking, to see Cas on one knee right in front of him, way too close for comfort. Cas stared directly at him, eyes looking sad, concerned. Almost . . . loving. He lost himself in those eyes as the feelings broke free and crashed into him, overflowing onto his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he croaked out. “I’m so sorry for hurting you.”

Cas reached out and put a hand on his upper arm and Dean could feel the other’s warmth through his long-sleeve shirt. “I forgive you, Dean.” Cas squeezed gently and only then did Dean realize it was right over the scarred handprint on his flesh.

Everything seemed to go dark, dizzy, whirling emotions and sensations and a gradual lessening of the pressure that had threatened to explode inside his head. When he finally regained control over his breathing, the room came back into focus. A box of tissues sat on the sofa next to him. Cas was back in his chair, watching quietly.

 _I’ll watch over you_.

The memory of those words came unbidden to Dean’s mind and he managed a short laugh.

“Are you good?” Cas asked.

Dean considered the odd question honestly. “I’m better.” And he was hot. Sweating, even. “Can we open the window? Does it open?”

“Of course, Dean.” Cas moved to the window and slid it open. The sounds of traffic immediately filled the room, followed by the horn blast of a semi-trailer.

  * * * * *

 With a start, the office was gone and Dean found himself lying face-down on a disgusting-smelling carpet. He lifted his head and looked around as if seeing the seedy motel room for the first time. Sighing, he squeezed his eyes shut. _What was all that? Where had he been?_

The trill of his cellphone caught his attention and he struggled up, groaning as he made his way to the side of the bed, grabbing his phone off the nightstand and looking at the display as he sat down.

12 Messages from SAM.

He clicked the phone off, all the familiar feelings returning: the undercurrent of anger from the mark, the guilt, the sense of hopelessness. Maybe the mark had disappeared in whatever the hell that office was, but it was mostly certainly back and barking orders now.

It was too much, his head was pounding, and he reached for a bottle of stale beer, taking two swallows to try and ease the pressure. The memories of that office, of losing it in front of Cas T. Elle, PhD, of Cas walking him to the center of his pain and forcing him to really look at it, came back full-force, and Dean lowered his face into his hand, breathing heavily.

 _Are you good?_   Cas’ voice echoed in his mind.

He raised his head slowly, resolutely, keeping his eyes closed. “I’m good. I’m good.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first SPN fanfic I've ever written, and the first fanfic of any sort in over 20 years. I'm a new SPN fan (going on three months as of this writing) and while I did my research, I hope it comes across with as much integrity as I intended it to have. Thanks so much for reading!


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